https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation
"One study on genetic variations between different species of
Drosophila suggests that, if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, the result is likely to be harmful, with an estimated
70 percent of amino acid polymorphisms that have damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial.
Yes, and this would make sense given how most organisms are typically at some peak, however small, of their respective fitness landscapes. An organism is, to some extent, well-adapted to its environment, and any changes have decent odds of making it less-well-adapted. Are you aware of the concept of a fitness landscape?
First of all lets get one thing straight. I am certainly not arguing mankind's common ancestor did not live in the recent past, since Adam and Eve came about in the recent past. I only argue what those decedents were and how that common ancestor came about.
Secondly this means mutation is useless as we observe populations today - they are too large and no mutation will ever become fixed in the population. As of today - evolution by mutation is completely useless as a viable means of increasing the complexity of a population as their exists no mechanism for the sharing of this mutation to the populations at large
...But I just gave you a mechanism. Mutations spread through populations rapidly because populations are
massively incestuous. Basically if you go back through human history, for any given individual who lived more than 4,000 years ago, they are either the direct ancestor of every human alive today or the direct ancestor of none.
And yes, you've tapped into something that Gould and Eldridge realized some 50-odd years ago - that spreading beneficial mutations through a large, wide-spread population is a slow and arduous process, and that these mutations are
far more likely to spread quickly among small, geographically isolated populations.
This is a non-trivial element of Punctuated Equilibrium. You're a wee bit behind the times.
I do no such thing. Lateral gene transfer exists and is fairly common among prokaryotic species. It is present but extremely rare among eukaryotes and does not account for the diversity present. We can measure LGT, and the measurements simply do not account for the mutations we see.
Tell us all how a mutation that beneficially affects Bob - is going to beneficially affect the rest of the population???? Go ahead, explain this to us. Don't run from it. So we can certainly conclude evolution is no longer a viable process with today's population and fixation within the population.
Let's say Bob got a gene that makes his foreskin corrode latex. I think we can all quite unambiguously say that this gene is more likely to be passed on (my condolences to Bob and anyone who sleeps with him not knowing about his awful track record with condoms). Genealogy predicts that within several thousand years, Bob is almost certainly going to be either the direct ancestor of all humans alive, or the direct ancestor of none, and his mutation is both one which is likely to be conserved and one which helps ensure his genetic legacy. Or, as SMBC so nicely put it:
What effect does Bob's mutation have on humanity
now? Virtually none, save for that
he, any any offspring he passes it on to, has a reproductive advantage (sorry Bob!).
You ask us to believe in some mythical ancestor - just as you are claiming we do, but this seems to be ok for you to do so and call it science, while when others do its religion.
Because one of them
is science, and one of them
is religion! This ancestor is not mythical, they are a mathematical and biological
necessity. Whereas the idea that there was ever just one man and one woman some few thousand years ago is laughable.
SHOW ME A SINGLE FOSSIL OF THIS COMMON ANCESTOR THAT SPLIT INTO HUMAN AND APE??????????
Congratulations, you've confused the most recent human common ancestor to the most recent hominini common ancestor. Or most recent homininae common ancestor, depending on what you mean by "ape". Either way, you've gone back a few hundred thousand years further than what I was referring to. Again, I remind you, chances are very good that upwards of 95% of all humans alive today have a direct ancestral lineage to
Confucius. Master Kong. The guy who lived around 500 BCE. That's not "hominid living on the savannah". That's not even "the oldest human civilization we know of". That's "about two thousand years after the great Pyramid of Giza was constructed".
So you can't, can you. You don't even have a possible one do you. So it's all just wishful thinking and computer simulation right? We would get the same exact results if we started with Adam and Eve in those computer simulations, wouldn't we.
...Yeah, I'mma just let this one speak for itself.
You are quite mistaken if you think anyone believes the population a few thousands of years ago was more than 2.
"I think you'll find that the vast majority of scientists agree with
me; the world is at the center of the universe and everything spins around it."
But you have yet to show one single example of mating species where mutation was involved - except in your beliefs. Gene recombination occurs and new dominant and recessive traits become fixed. Not by mutation, but by natural processes built into the genomes.
My favorite part is that
I already did. The peppered moth! And your response was to essentially call the scientist responsible a fraud for no reason whatsoever. So I guess that kind of begs the question - what evidence
are you looking for? What can I give you that you won't immediately throw back in my face?
But you are still avoiding discussing those Finches, even though I have given you opportunity to do so in every single post. Still fail to defend your claims of speciation occurring. Stop running.
- http://www.christianforums.com/threads/evolution-creation-on-trial.7892639/page-17#post-68206323
- http://www.christianforums.com/thre...tific-consensus.7890889/page-19#post-68078958
- http://www.christianforums.com/thre...nts-on-evolution.7899400/page-2#post-68375805
- http://www.christianforums.com/threads/evolution-creation-on-trial.7892639/page-15#post-68196565
Every time you have brought up Darwin's Finches, I have given you a clear and unambiguous answer (in fact, if you look closely, you can see the gradual shift in position that comes from learning more about the issue). Last time, I wondered if it was simply a matter of missing my answer, so I gave you my answer in big red letters, hoping you would notice it. Here it is again:
All caveats aside,
I personally do not think that the finches currently or previously qualified as different species.
Maybe it was just missing the bold and underline last time.